


No Good

by stephanericher



Series: 31 Days of Horoscopes [29]
Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-11
Updated: 2017-02-11
Packaged: 2018-09-23 14:16:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9660824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stephanericher/pseuds/stephanericher
Summary: 2/9: It's time to face up to certain things about yourself that you may have denied for some time, Aquarius. You have only yourself to answer to, so relax. You aren't the first one to have to deal with old issues that probably aren't as shameful as you think. You don't have to be proud of them. You can't keep hiding them from yourself. This could cause more problems than dealing with them once and for all.





	

**Author's Note:**

> so this 31-day challenge is based on the wonderful [31-Day Horoscope Challenge by @icandrawamoth](http://archiveofourown.org/series/621022). Simply: read your horoscope for the day from horoscope.com (Aquarius for me); use it as a writing prompt.
> 
> ftr mike is the little kid shuu & tatsuya rescue in their replace chapter

Shuuzou knows what’s happening even before he can see it clearly or hear a word they’re saying; the pattern’s too familiar not to (like it’s been lifted straight from a blueprint). He strolls over slowly, trying to get a closer look, and when he gets a better view he wants to start running. It’s Mike, arms folded and body tense, staring up at a group of three kids Shuuzou doesn’t know, slightly older than him. All three of them are leaning in, trying to crowd Mike out of his own space.

“Sounds an awful lot to me like you want to fight,” says one of the kids, smiling.

“Think you can take me?” says Mike.

“What’s going on here?” says Shuuzou.

All four of them freeze; one of the older kids looks like he’s ready to bolt.

“Hey,” says Shuuzou. “What’s this I hear about fighting around here?”

Mike looks guiltily down at his feet, scuffing one sneaker on the blacktop. The older kids are all frowning.

“What’s it to you?”

“I don’t appreciate that kind of thing around here,” says Shuuzou, crossing his arms. “Knock it off.”

The older kids grumble but trudge off down the street, not even bothering to shoot a look back at Mike or Shuuzou. It’s only once they’re gone a few minutes that Mike finally speaks.

“What was that for?”

“I don’t want you to get hurt.”

“I could have handled them! What do you know about how good a fighter I am?”

“I know enough,” says Shuuzou. “Why do you want to fight? What did they do to you?”

“Nothing,” says Mike—and it seems to be true.

“Going after a fight won’t solve shit. It just creates problems.”

“You fight. You saved me that time—”

“And that’s because I had to. I don’t get into fights when there’s nothing at stake if I walk away. It’s too easy to get hurt or get mixed up in things I shouldn’t have anything to do with.”

“So what? You did them. You’re okay now.”

“Not everyone’s that lucky,” says Shuuzou.

Mike scowls. “You don’t get it. It’s easy for you to ac all above it all now, but you don’t.”

And he turns on his heels, crossing his arms over his chest and practically stomping down the street—Shuuzou takes a step to follow him, but what’s that going to do? He can say he does understand all he wants, offer examples and try to relate, but right now Mike’s only going to shut him down and push him further away. But he might try and go after those kids again (probably not, probably avoid them and go to someone else because at that age there are so many potential opponents); he might do something rash and stupid and there’s nothing Shuuzou can do about it. Tell his parents, except he doesn’t know them.

But that won’t work, either; Shuuzou knows that all too well. And maybe this cuts a little too deep not just because it’s Mike, someone he’s so used to thinking of as a sweet kid, but because what he’s saying and the way he’s saying it is what Shuuzou used to say, how he’d said it, when he was Mike’s age. And especially seeing Mike that way, the way he’d been, makes it harder to know what to do. When concerned adults had told Shuuzou’s parents, it had only made things more difficult when their relationship was already strained and made him want to rebel more (and had made them worry more). The more people had intervened, the more Shuuzou had pushed back. He’d kept fighting, kept stealing, kept breaking things.

It was basketball that had pulled him out of that, at the end; it tied up his time and there were things he’d had to do to stay on Teikou’s team no matter how good he was, things that hadn’t always been easy (things that had, in the end, been too much for some people). Mike already has basketball, though; he hasn’t started pulling away yet, but he might. But then again Tatsuya had had it and still managed to get involved in some nasty fights, chasing punches and pretending he was okay when his torso had been a mass of bruises and he’d probably cracked a rib.

Maybe Tatsuya would know better than Shuuzou what to do, but it’s not something Shuuzou wants to talk about over the phone or e-mail; even if Tatsuya’s not the one to talk to Mike he has to have that option (Mike knows Shuuzou too well; he’d catch him in five seconds if he’d tried to repeat some lines Tatsuya had fed him, not that Tatsuya would do that in the first place). And Shuuzou could be conflating the situation with his own and finding parallels that aren’t there, approaching it from the wrong angles, tell it to Tatsuya in a way that makes him focus on the wrong things.

Hell, even if some concrete action had been taken that had pulled Shuuzou right out of that life, it’s impossible to know that same action would work on Mike. And maybe Shuuzou’s making too big of a deal about this in the first place; plenty of adolescents fight people without making it a lifestyle or joining a gang or wandering the streets at all hours of the night. But saying that to himself isn’t going to make Shuuzou worry any less right now, and it’s not going to change the way he was that kid and how much he’d made his parents worry.

It’s getting late; the kids are still playing basketball but he should bring them home soon and make them do their homework, ease his mother’s worries and burdens instead of piling onto them. At least they aren’t fighting, but Shuuzou’s going to do everything he can not to let that happen in the first place.

He holds both of their hands tightly, even in the grocery store (his sister gives him a funny look, but she doesn’t make him let go), and all the way home with the groceries in his backpack. Maybe tomorrow some idea will come to him; maybe tomorrow Mike will avoid a fight on his own; maybe if he sleeps on it he’ll figure it out. But now there’s dinner to cook and homework and chores to do and just standing here worrying won’t do anyone any good.


End file.
